


Math Homework

by likingandloving



Series: Sweet and Bitter [2]
Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 00:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5269601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likingandloving/pseuds/likingandloving
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leslie is having a hard time with math and Ben decides to help her out</p>
            </blockquote>





	Math Homework

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I got such an overwhelming response from the first part of this series and I'm so happy that you guys enjoyed it! Hopefully, you enjoy this part just as much.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Leslie swears, quickly gathering the loose scraps of paper and her binders. She’s late. She can’t believe that she’s going to be late for work. She got too lost in this stupid problem set, wondering why she was going around in circles and getting every answer but the correct one. She starts stuffing her book bag with all her research and hastily tries to find the copy of Theodore Rex she picked up from the library last week. She shifts through her papers and the many old newspapers she has on her desk and aha, there it is, wedged in between a birdhouse and her collection of Joe Biden memorabilia. 

“Woah, where’s the fire?” Ann asks, coming into the room when she hears the commotion.

“I’m late. I can’t believe I’m going to be _late_.” Ann blinks once as she stares at the clock on Leslie’s desk as Leslie continues to run around the room like her head's been cut off, grabbing papers and pens from God knows where. (Indiana had already given her three warnings about their room being something short of a health code violation)

Is she reading the clock wrong?

“Les, you’re going to be thirty minutes early if you leave now. The coffee shop is like five minutes away. You’re not going to be late.”

“Yeah but Ron wanted me to come in early because he…” Leslie hesitates, but powers through her excuse. “…wanted me to show Jerry around again.”

“Jerry? I thought he was supposed to be on Tom’s shift now.”

Okay, so she hasn’t told Ann yet about Ben. It’s not that she didn’t want to.

_It’s just that she didn’t want to._

Ann Perkins, most amazing roommate-turned-best friend and relationship adviser, would probably tell her that she was crazy for always going to work at least an hour earlier than she needed just to make sure that she caught Ben. Ben’s only come in a handful more times since last week, but every time he did they always had a brief discussion about the books they were reading and he was already on her second recommendation while she was still on his first.

And she wasn’t going to lie; it was quickly becoming her favorite part of the day.

It even beat her nightly talks with Ann about the weird things that happened during her volunteer hours at a local hospital in Indianapolis.

Plus, she knew that Ann would just push her to call Dave instead of obsessing over the cute boy at a coffee shop. 

“Well, he wanted me to just run him through how to use the espresso machine without almost burning his eyebrows of.”

(True story. It had happened already twice this week and Jerry’s only shifts were on _those_ two days. But Jerry wasn’t on her shift, Ann was right. He was on Tom’s.)

“Okay, anyways, I’m going to be closing so don’t wait up! Good luck with your Human Anatomy and I’ll see you later after a very uneventful shift.” Leslie hoists her bag over her shoulder and grabs her apron before rushing out the door, effectively avoiding any additional questions Ann had on her blatant lie.

Donna is fixing up the register for the next shift when she comes in, breathless and her apron still balled in her hand. She doesn’t look surprised, since she’s already come in like this every single day this week.

“Don’t worry, lover boy ain’t here yet.”

“L-Lover boy?” Leslie stutters. “What lover boy?”

“You’re kidding me right? You come in every single shift at least an hour early, you look around the coffee shop like you’re looking for someone and you even put on lipgloss. You hate lip gloss.”

“I don’t hate lip gloss—“

“You say it’s too sticky and it tastes like melted candlewax.” Leslie swipes subconsciously at her decorated lip, licking the too sticky substance. Her nose wrinkles because she’s right, she does hate it, but it was a little nuisance she was willing to overcome.

“Who is he?”

“He’s no one. What if I come early because I wanted to help you because you know that these muffin pans are such a hell to clean and the espresso machine has been making some weird noises recently and how do I know that you’re not the one who’s waiting for a cute guy in this coffee shop I mean…” Leslie distractedly just flits around the counter as Donna stops her with a skeptical look.

“… _Right_.”

Donna doesn’t ask any more questions (something that Leslie is grateful for because she’s already told two lies today and has anyone ever told you that she’s terrible at it?) and eventually leaves, leaving Leslie alone until Ben came in around half an hour into her shift. 

“Evening Leslie.” He tips his baseball cap in an old fashioned way and it makes her laugh, but she can’t deny that the awkward movement suits him in a weird way.

“Hey Ben. Your regular order? A brewed coffee with two sugars?”

“Uh, yeah, actually. Have I been here that much?” He asks, as if embarrassed. Ben had started to become a regular at the coffee shop. He comes in the same time almost everyday save for a few days in the two weeks since he’s started coming in. It’s not like Leslie minds.

Well, actually, she doesn’t mind at all.

She’s been trying to control her crush, but she’s finding it harder and harder the more that she spends time with Ben. On days that it’s quiet, sometimes he lingers by the counter and they talk a little. She tells him about why she’s pursuing history and he tells her about what he learns in accounting. Sometimes he’ll spend most of the night bent over books and spreadsheets, muttering to himself as she steals glances at him in between chapters of whatever book he’s recommended.

She tries not to watch, tries not to linger too long on details other people don’t notice, but she can’t help herself. She can’t help but watch the way his fingers tense when he writes, such purpose and authority in the way that he crosses out t’s and dots i’s. She can’t help but notice the way his nose scrunches up when he is concentrating, ridges of skin forming in between his eyes. She can’t help but want to help when he gets frustrated, tugging impatiently on his hair as he taps his foot in a rhythmic beat against the tiled floors.

And she really can’t help but watch the way he smiles, the corner of his eyes crinkling in happiness and the way his lips curl slowly at the edges.

She can’t help it when he always smiles at her.

“We should probably start setting up your bed over there by your table, just to be safe.”

“Ha-ha, you’re _hilarious_.”

It’s almost routine, waiting for Leslie to give him his change and taking a seat by the painting before Leslie brings over his coffee with his name scribbled on the side of the paper cup along with a poorly drawn smiley face.

Leslie spends the rest of the night feeling eyes on the side of her face. She’s half-focused on her homework since it’s math and she can’t really do math, but the other half is occupied with wondering why Ben was looking at her so much.

Did she have something on her face?

She ran a quick hand over her forehead and cheeks, not feeling anything particularly wet or sticky and her fingers come clean of color. She even took a quick sniff at her shirt to see if she smelled bad but that was impossible because Ann bought her this amazing new body wash that smelled of lavender and Ann always said she smelled good.

It must be nothing, plus she has more important things to focus on, like not flunking out of trigonometry.

She goes back to writing out equations and variables, biting the end of her pen in both frustration and concentration as the numbers get larger and way more difficult to solve.

“Fuck!” She swears loudly, crossing out another wrong answer.

“Woah, is the paper doing something wrong?” Ben’s voice startles her out of her focused haze and he’s standing on the other side of the counter, his empty coffee cup in his hand.

“Sorry. Trigonometry isn’t exactly being a friend right now. I’ll grab you a refill right now.” She stands, grabbing the pot despite Ben’s protests.

“No, seriously, it’s okay. You’re the customer, you need good service, not loud swearing at homework I’m definitely going to fail at.”

She fills his cup while he glances down at her homework, his face scrunched and a familiar look on his face. It was the face he made when he was staring down at his Economics book, his music blasting through his earphones.

It was his ‘I’m thinking’ face. The face that he made when she was discussing what she thought on the whole Theodore Roosevelt/Panama controversy before piping in with his own point of view. (God, he was so opinionated on political issues it was a miracle she hasn't accidentally kissed him while he was talking about abhorrent human right violations.)

“Oh, this is how you do it.” Ben plucks at her abandoned, chewed up pen and isn’t even bothered by the little bit of the spit at the end that horrifies Leslie, but instead starts to talk and guides her through the problem.

He simplifies her questions and applies formulas and reassigns variables but by the end of it all, it exactly matched the answer that she got from the back of the book.

“… So you just carry the x over here and it should give you 17.235.”

Leslie’s dumbfounded, staring at the paper like it was doing magic tricks in front of her as he circled the final answer and smiles, seemingly satisfied with his work.

“That’s impossible.”

“It’s not actually, just do that thing where you reduce the equation and you should be fine. If you ever need help, at least you know where to find me. I’m waiting for my bed to be set up.” Leslie giggles and nods.

“Thanks again, Ben.” He nods, smiling before heading back to his seat.

Leslie spends the next two hours so engrossed in her homework, earphones blasting her ‘For Hard Homework You Need to Be Pumped For’ mix, that she doesn’t even notice Ben leave. When she finishes the final problem and encircles that last answer, she fist pumps triumphantly but immediately retaliates out of fear that Ben had seen her.

Instead, she looks up at an empty coffee shop and her heart slightly sinks (no matter how much she tells her it has nothing to do with Ben because she does not have a crush on him).

But, later on, she finds a post it stuck to the register.

_I didn’t want to bother you. Good luck on your homework! You've got this._

Fuck.

(Okay, so maybe she has a little bit of a crush. Sue her.)

\---


End file.
